Thursday, December 20, 2012

Gilbert's interview of Joe Arechavala and Darkness Persists

One of my fellow writers from our South Jersey writer's group and one of the authors in the short story anthology Tall Tales and Short Stories from South Jersey has a great vampire book out called Darkness Persists. Now dear readers, you know that I'm into horror and the supernatural so I had to interview Joe about this book. So let's get started and let me introduce Author Joe Arechavala.

Joe, I just love the western comedy that you submitted to Tall Tales and Short Stories from South Jersey and I'll never think of the Wild Wild West the same way again. Tell us a little bit about yourself.

Not much to tell. I've lived in NJ all my life, been married for 27 years come February, have 2 boys and lead a pretty ordinary life. It's a good thing I don't follow the "write what you know" rule, otherwise my stories would be more boring than the phone book.

Can you tell us a little about your book,
Darkness Persists?

Darkness Persists is the story of Kristen Lightner, who meets Remy St. Andre, a 300 year-old vampire who makes her one of his undead brides. She rebels and runs away, running home to her best friend Jessy Harker.

But Jessy is taken and turned by Remy as well, and Kristen is forced to take a desperate gamble, allying herself with a vampire hunter to try to kill her former sire and hopefully save her friend. And falling in love iwth another of Remy's brides only complicates things further. Even as the demon still rages inside her, she must find a way to satisfly her lust for blood without giving in to eternal darkness.

The story relates to her struggles with this darkness and whether she can be redeemed in the end. Even though it's in the vampire genre, it's really a story about how we all fight against our darker natures and endore loss.

What inspired you to write this
story?

It started as a short story that wound up turning into a novel. I've always liked the vampire genre and have written several stories, which I'll be including in an anthology, hopefully for early next year.

Can you tell my readers about your voyage
into self publishing this book and would you recommend self publishing to other
upcoming writers?

Self-publishing wasn't the route I intended to take. It's a lot harder! The publisher who had agreed to print my novel changed from a traditional to an on-demand house. Being unemployed and without a lot of money, I chose to self-publish on Amazon. The easy part is putting it on there; the hard part is promoting it, especially for me. I'm not a toot your own horn kind of person.

Marketing is just as important if not more
than publishing , so what steps are you taking to get your book noticed?

As I said, the hard part. I started a Facebook page, and did take out some ads on Facebook, printed up business cards in Vista which I'm dropping everywhere I go, and looking for more ways to promote the book ( Anyone with a good idea, let me know...)

What other stories have you
published?

I've had several stories and poems published, both online (Aphelion Magazine, clevermag.com) and in print (Pearl, Hudson Skyline).

Do you have another book in the works?

I'm working on an anthology, a collection of horror, sci-fi and fantasy stories, hopefully with original takes on the stories.

Thank you so much for visiting my blog and hopefully this will spark readers into visiting the Amazon site to buy Darkness Persists.